In life, I don’t regret what I have actually done, half as much as I’ve regretted what I didn’t do when I had the chance, or what I did do, but did in a way that was omitting to do something very important.
This is a truth that functions on many levels.
One wise person told me many years ago:
The worst thing you can ever say is:
‘If only I had…’
If you have concrete, substantial regrets, at least you know where you stand.
If but if all you have to regret is a large, dizzying abyss; or T.S. Eliot‘s
The passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened
Into the rose-garden.
The grief of what you have failed to realize or accomplish, and what it has cost you and others, will never go away.
Time does not heal all things, but it numbs the pain of your debts and your trangressions.
But there is no healing and no panacea and no forgiveness, now nor forevermore, for the beauty and the treasure you squandered on the highway, trampled in the ditch and cast to the four heavens.
Better far to ache in Mordor
Than wistful, sore to sigh
In Rivendell.
